Champ Anderson Silva reportedly volunteered for UFC 151 slot

Count UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva among those who offered to bail out the UFC.

When injured Dan Henderson pulled out of UFC 151’s main event and his original opponent, UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones, declined a fight with late replacement Chael Sonnen, the UFC ultimately canceled the Sept. 1 event.

According to the report, Silva and manager Ed Soares offered to take a headliner slot on eight days’ notice. With Jones off the card, Silva, who wasn’t exactly in fighting shape, offered to move up a weight class and meet whatever light heavyweight the UFC chose. However, UFC 151, which was slated for Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay Events Center, had already been scrapped, as UFC President Dana White announced during a media call on Thursday.

Silva’s offer is surprising, especially when considering that MMA’s pound-for-pound kingpin planned to take off the rest of 2012 following a UFC 148 victory over rival Sonnen.

Of course, Silva was one of many fighters, both in and out the UFC, who volunteered to fight at UFC 151 following the Jones-Henderson cancellation. Top middleweight contender Chris Weidman was chief among them.

Ultimately, the UFC announced Jones instead would fight at Toronto’s UFC 152 event on Sept. 22 in a rematch with Lyoto Machida. However, the UFC announced overnight that Machida turned down the fight, and recent middleweight title challenger Vitor Belfort has been plugged in as the replacement.

A total of 26 fighters got their chance to shine on Saturday as part of UFC 190 at Rio de Janeiro’s HSBC Arena. Now that UFC 190 is in the books, it’s time to commence MMAjunkie’s “Three Stars” ceremony.

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